A Chinese food deliveryman turned the tables on two muggers in a Spanish Harlem apartment building last night, pulling out a gun and shooting one of them, police said.

The restaurant worker was in the lobby of an E. 108th St. building at 7:49 p.m. when the pair tried to rob him, cops said. The muggers may have displayed a knife, cops said.

The deliveryman fired a .380 handgun at least once, striking one bandit in the thigh. Police said the bullet struck an artery. The injured man was hospitalized in serious condition. The other robber fled.

The deliveryman was arrested on weapons charges. Police said he had a permit to have the gun at his business but did not have the authority to take it off the premises.

Police did not release the names of the men involved in the incident.

[My comment - on whose side is the justice system in NYC? Who do they think they are working for?]

The guy had a license to keep a gun in his business.He was defending himself from criminal attack.In most parts of this country, he would have been given a medal.You'd think that since he just went through the traumatic experience of being mugged and having to shoot another human being, they would have had the decency to leave him alone.But no! He had to be arrested, for the technical violation of carrying his weapon outside the scope of his license!

I am generally pro-cop, but officers and prosecutors who hound citizens like this should be limited to enforcing only the rules of the game of Monopoly. They have no place enforcing the laws of citizens and human beings.